Losing You (Stars On Fire Book 4)
Losing You
Copyright © 2016 by Ryleigh Andrews
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Never Over You Series
Bring Me You
Still Into You
Never Over You
Only in the darkness can you see the stars.
~ Martin Luther King Jr.
Lizzie
Chicago, June 2006
Sometimes even the most well thought out plans go awry. Lizzie had pictured herself far away from the town she grew up in. Her parents had moved away when she started college. Nothing really tied her to the small Chicago suburb of Lombard. All her life, she had pictured herself on the coast, west or east, it didn’t matter, though to be honest, she preferred the sun and surf of the West Coast. College had her basically right in the middle of the country—the University of Colorado at Boulder. Not anywhere near any kind of surfing. Just mountains and snow. Graduation found her taking a job in Colorado—the place she’d just spent the past four years of her life-not L.A. or San Francisco, but Denver.
But it had been an amazing opportunity. Lizzie let herself become the career; her life, the job. She hadn’t taken the time to build a personal life. Everything was about work. For eight years.
Until one afternoon changed that for her. A promotion she worked her ass off for didn’t materialize for her but for one of her boss’s buddies. In that company, if you didn’t have a dick, you didn’t get ahead.
She was done. Tired. She needed her life to be more than it was.
The very next day Lizzie began the process of finding a new job. She thought about her dream of being in California, but when she started looking at the job boards, Chicago kept popping up. The funny thing, it felt right.
Time to return home.
That’s how she found herself sitting on the brown vinyl seat as the fairly empty Metra train pulled out of Chicago’s Union Station, taking her west towards her newly purchased house in her old hometown.
Relaxing her head against the seat, Lizzie closed her eyes and thought about her first month at her new job with Nigel Advertising. It had exhausted her. She really liked her boss and the potential for growth, but the job was more demanding than she’d originally imagined. But she was fine with that . . . wasn’t she?
The job may have been more of a challenge but she had friends here. Well, she hoped she still did. But here she was a month back and hadn’t contacted them. Her job had gotten in the way again. She shook her head at that.
She pulled out her day planner from her bag (yes, she still used a day planner. She thought better when things flowed from pen to paper). Flipping to the address portion, her eyes landed on a name.
Tom Myers.
Best friend extraordinaire, or at least he used to be until she let her job in Colorado become her life. The last she’d seen him was the summer after she graduated from college. The last time she’d spoken with him was her birthday in December.
So long ago.
Tracing her finger over her neat handwriting, she thought about him.
Her mind instantly went to the first night she met him at a party their sophomore year of high school where her brother’s stupid friends had pushed her into Tom. After that night, she and Tom had become fast friends and had hung out all the time along with his neighbor and close friend, Ollie, and her best girl friend, Gwen. The four of them had been a team—always together.
Tom had become her sounding board. He heard her dreams, her desires to leave and go elsewhere. He sat by her side and comforted her during all her boyfriend drama. He celebrated with her when she’d been accepted to the University of Colorado. He squeezed the breath out of her before she climbed in her packed car and drove off to Boulder. Every week he called her, asking about her life as a college student and then told her about how his apprenticeship was going.
Tom was her constant until he wasn’t. Her constant until that damn job overtook her life.
But no more.
This time, things would be different. She’d make damn sure of that.
The conductor announced her stop, interrupting her thoughts. Chewing on her thumb, she decided she’d give Tom a call once she got home. With that plan in the forefront of her mind, she closed the binder and stuffed it in her bag.